On 2 May 2018, at the BİLGİ TALKS event held at İstanbul Bilgi University, Vircon Legal co-founder Erdem Mümtaz Hacıpaşaoğlu delivered a session on entrepreneurship for founders.
When does a project become a company?
Incorporating too early costs money the venture does not yet have; incorporating too late costs something harder to recover. Three signals usually settle the timing: someone wants to pay and needs an invoice, more than one person is contributing work that should belong to a shared entity, or money is coming in from outside. Until then a project can legitimately remain a project — but the work produced in that period still has to be assigned to the company later, and that assignment is easiest while everyone is still on good terms.
Incorporation also starts obligations that run whether or not the business trades: bookkeeping, e-invoicing where thresholds are met, and eventually electronic ledgers. Paying contributors without registration creates informal employment exposure that a young startup rarely factors in. See Corporate Law and the Startup Law in Türkiye guide.
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